Latest Self-Immolation in Front of the French Embassy in London - 2003-06-20

Today, an Iranian man set himself on fire in front of the French Embassy in London as a protest against the repression of members of the People's Mujahedin Organization in France. The English police immediately extinguished the flames and rushed the severely injured man to the hospital. This self-immolation is the latest in a series of self-immolations by supporters of the Mujahedin in Paris, London, Rome, the capital of Italy, and Bern, the capital of Switzerland. French police reported that one of three protesters who set themselves on fire in Paris on Wednesday died the following day. The protests by the Mujahedin are in response to the French police's action on Tuesday, which arrested about 160 Iranian exiles who are members of the Mujahedin. The U.S. and the European Union have designated the Mujahedin as a terrorist organization, and French officials say that the Mujahedin had plotted to attack embassies and consulates of the Islamic Republic in Europe. The Mujahedin, who oppose the Tehran regime, had their main base in Iraq until recently. Among those arrested in Paris was Maryam Rajavi, the wife of Massoud Rajavi, the leader of the Mujahedin. The Mujahedin announced ten years ago that Maryam Rajavi had been elected as the President of Iran. The Mujahedin actively participated in the Islamic Revolution and played a major role in bringing the clerical regime to power, but after the Islamic regime consolidated absolute power in Iran, it severely repressed the Mujahedin, whom it saw as rivals. The leaders of the Mujahedin initially fled to France, but a few years later, the French government expelled them from the country. The Mujahedin were then forced to turn to Saddam Hussein, the former dictator of Iraq, who provided them with shelter and a base in Iraq, but at the end of the recent war in Iraq, the Mujahedin were compelled to begin handing over their weapons to U.S. forces.